Tag Archives: DIY Music Video

Ups and downs, that’s what my week has been like… But that’s life for you, ups and downs. I must admit though, with age I’ve learned to look at the downs form a little bit different perspective. It is always good to step back from the situation and look at it as a whole picture rather than just the rut you are stuck in . I don’t want to make this blog post about my personal problems, but I want to b honest with you guys as well, so here it goes.

I got a call from my landlord, he has decided he needs to get the market rate rent for our apartment. The rents in Dublin have been going through the roof again, and now we are already twenty percent over what the rents were at the top of the famous boom that brought Ireland to its knees few years back. So a “house hunt” is ahead of us.

On one hand I feel frustrated, as this place has been my home for many years. On the other hand, maybe it is time to embrace the change. I’ve been living in the centre of the city for nearly 18 years, so not having pretty much everything at walking distance is going to be an adjustment 😀

At the same time this week has been super productive week for me. I got several new videos up on my YouTube channel, which is going to be getting a lot more love from now on, so subscribe HERE if you like to see what I am up to 🙂

I also got back into running, I forgot how much of a difference it has on my day 🙂 The above picture is from St. Stephens green during one of my morning runs, I’m particularly proud of it:-) My only struggle is to hold back. You see few years back I had a stress fracture in my foot and I definitely don’t want it to reappear. Many of you advised me on Twitter and Instagram on my “foot related” questions. Thank you! Ups and downs.

So as you can imagine, week like this might have quite few hidden lessons.

I learned that to be more productive, I need to actually take a break and do some exercise and out doors (rain or shine) is the best option.

I learned countless lessons on video editing, too many to list here 😀

I learned how nice guitar Martin HD-28v is, but also how well my Musima stands up beside it. The more expensive option is not always better. It could just be different.

I learned the importance of not worrying about things that are out of your control.

I learned how much I despise financial greed, and would not want to be part of it. Don’t get me wrong, money is important. We all need it to be able to live. But when that greed takes control, usually bad things happen.

I learned that despite my “news” this week, I have so much to be grateful about 🙂

Now that is some deep and great lessons. And now onto this weeks blog posts.

This weeks song “Deep Down” is, as the tittle hints, a deep one. Read all about it in the link below and grab your self a download copy from my Bandcamp page.

So that’s it. That concludes another busy week. As always I’d like to hear your feedback, but this week especially I’d like to hear your thoughts on the Vlogs. So let me know what you think? And if you like what I do and would like to support me along the way, the best way to do this is through Patreon HERE. Last I’d like to say big thank you to you guys. During a week like the one I had, having you guys to share my writing, thoughts and music with has been a constant focus and a great uplifter. Thank you! And have a great week 🙂

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

Here’s a new video and bit of a talk for last week’s song “Winter Months.” I mentioned this before, but I have been doing these kind of videos lately for the people who support me on Patreon. From time to time, I’ll be giving you a little teaser of these on my blog s well, in a hopes that the tease would inspire you to become my next Patron 😉 Which you can do HERE

Anyway… Sales pitch over 😉 Back to the song. If you did not read the song post yet, check it out HERE and if you like it, you can grab your self a delved copy from my Bandcamp page HERE. Let me know what you think.

Let me get little bit technical here for a second. I made the extra effort of digging out my Lumix G2 camera for the second angle shots. It’s actually a very nice camera, and I might be using it more in the future. The only problem is that the built-in microphone on the Lumix stinks bad! It actually picks up some internal noise, which sounds like the old video tape recorders… and it’s a digital camera… But the picture quality is great. Having said that, I have been ridiculously impressed with both the camera and the sound quality of the iPhone camera.

And that’s all the technical stuff over and done with. Hit play, check out the song and share it with the world.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

So here is the last video from the Sliotar tour. This is kind of collage of the stuff that most people usually don’t see, the long hours on the road, but also few bits of video from the shows. Apart from the live concert shots, the rest of it was filmed and edited by me. I am a completely an amateur when it comes to filming and editing, so be gentle with me 😉 But I’d still love to hear your feedback as well. Oh yeah, and share it with the world 🙂

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

It’s a cloudy overcast day in Dublin, but still warm. It feels like there is a thunder-storm on the way. But then again, that feeling has lingered around for few days now. We have a house quest for the next month and a half, which means I had to pack up my little office, including my recording equipment. I’m glad to do this though. And even though I felt myself resisting the idea first, It will do a world of good to me to work in a different environment for a while. Besides, I like having guests 🙂

Next week I am heading out with Sliotar to play some shows in Italy and Czech. I’ll be on the road for twelve days, so It will be a nice concentrated tour 🙂 And I’ll get to see a lot of friends along the way, which I am really looking forward to.

This week was a busy one, and even though I spent Thursday cleaning the house (one of my least favourite past times) and packing away my office, It was a good week. We had a great rehearsal, and managed to film quite few new videos. The sessions in the Porterhouse were great and the shows with Sliotar are in that pre tour mode, where you get to iron out the finer details of the set. I also got to catch with Rory from Melosity and it seems things are moving along nicely there as well. For those of you who contributed to the track we record in Melosity, let me just say it is sounding great 🙂 We still are in the process of adding all the other instruments in to the track, but we’ll get there.

I learned some interesting lessons this week, some of them will have longer term effect on how I conduct my business 🙂

1. I learned how little importance a unit price has in arts, if you let people help you. This is a big one and I will write about it more in the near future.

2. I learned how resiliently people resist the truth, when they want to find a shortcut. I was guilty of this in the past as well. And if you spell out the truth, not everyone is going to like it.

3. The value of finding out what your customers want by asking them. This was a lesson I learned from Rory, and will be looking into ways to implement it as an artist in the music business.

4. I realised how much I enjoy seeing people take my advice and putting it to good use.

And now off to this weeks posts 🙂

This weeks song “Alone at last” looks into how so many of us are scared of being alone. Again free download available from Bandcamp. Check it out here:

So that wraps up another week. Next week as my office is packed up, I’ll be doing most of my writing out of the house, and from Thursday onwards from the road. I’m sure the trip will inspire me to write few more juicy blog posts 😉 Until then, keep rocking, loving, churning and learning.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

It is a great feeling when after weeks of rehearsing you start to hear the set come together. This week we all could hear the sounds we had been working towards for months now and we had the video camera rolling, so we decided to make the most of it. This is the first video of a quite few we filmed during the week, and I’ll be posting these as I get them edited.

Northern Boy is a track from my first solo album and you can read more about the track it self HERE. It’s been a favourite of ours for a long time, and still puts me on a good mood when I sing it 🙂 This video really is starting to give you an idea what the live shows will sound like. So let us know what you think of it in the comments below, and feel free to share it with the world.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

Half way through June, it really seems like time does move faster when you are having fun 😀 This has been a week of getting focused and making some decisions that I’ve been putting off for a while. The acoustic versions of the songs for the new album are now all up on my blog, but with all of the developments with Melosity, rehearsals and few other things I have in the plans, the final recordings for the album are running late. So I decided to let the album take its time. Even though I work well with pressures of self set deadlines, that only works when it comes to me. But this time I wanted to include more people, a lot more people. So a bit of flexibility was required 😉 As a result, the new release date is, when ever all of us are ready 😀

But that does not mean I’ll be slowing down. Next week I’ll be posting a new song from the next patch of songs 😉 So upwards and onwards.

So let’s get in to this week’s blog posts. It was a busy week in the blogging front as well.

This weeks song “Let Me” is taking a little bit different approach to song writing, and I know this one will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Find out for your self here:

This is definitely one of my favourite songs to sing at the moment, but due to the quiet nature of it, it does not always work in a noisy pub. You can find the songs blog post HERE. This was recorded few weeks back in our rehearsals and I think you can hear the sounds we have been chasing starting to develop 🙂

Once again I need to remind you that this is just a rehearsal video, filmed with an iPhone, nothing fancier than that. I’d love to make a little bit more professional videos, but we are missing the budget and / or a partner in crime passionate short film maker, who shares their vision with me. We’ll hopefully get there someday. But for now, this will have to do 😉

Let me know what you think of the video, your input is always valuable to me 🙂 Also I don’t say this often enough, I love what Barra and Brian do with my songs, and I can’t thank them enough to have faith in me.

Now do me a big favour and share the video far and wide 🙂 It is you people who can help me to spread the word. And thanks for watching.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

I’m starting to feel like I am in need of some serious dose of vitamin D. Summer is definitely well behind the schedule here in Dublin, and I for one am in serious need of some warm sunshine 😀 But we struggle along, coffee helps.

I don’t know really what else to tell you about this week. It’s been a busy one, bit like the past year and a bit. But I feel it’s time to get my focus… bit more focused again. Three sessions, three Sliotar shows, recording, writing and keeping my blog busy certainly does keep me out of trouble 😉 So let’s get straight in to this weeks posts.

This weeks song was another deep one, but also a reminder to make the best with what ever time we have. Check it out here:

I know I’ve been giving out about this for a while now, but come on weather! Get it together! Living on an island on the edge of Atlantic kind of guarantees that you can not make picnic plans the day before 😀 I am officially ready for the summer, bring it on.

I’ve had a good week, apart from having a mini midlife crisis 😀 But friend of mine Des, who plays the drums in Sliotar put it nicely in to perspective and apparently with the current life expectancy I am seven years early to be having a midlife crisis. Nice one Des! But I had some lovely sessions in the Porterhouse and by the way, if you happen to be in Dublin anytime, I play an acoustic session (which is a mixture of traditional Irish music and my songs) in The Porterhouse with few friends Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday starting from 5pm, so that is the easiest way to find me 😀 I’m also there with Sliotar during the weekends, but that is upstairs on the stage.

Also we had a wonderful rehearsals on Wednesday. One of those ones when you listen back to it and you can hear something great growing out of the music organically. The weather also allowed me enough sunshine to clean my balcony, where I am hoping to do fair bit of my blog postings from this summer 🙂

But let’s get in to this weeks blog posts:

This week’ song is my way explaining why I do what I do, and I think many artists can relate to it:

And there we go. I’ll probably will be out celebrating my birthday (I’ll be starting day early), or waking up one year older. But let me just say this: in the past year and five months I’ve shared with you guys 464 blog posts and 71 songs so far. It has been nothing short of a magical journey and I have no plans of slowing anytime soon. I want you guys to know that every time you visit to my website, every time you listen to my songs, or watch the videos, it all means a world to me. You guys are the definition of my success (I’ll be talking about tis more next week) and I thank you for that 🙂 Have a great day!

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE

I think it’s time for another rehearsal video 🙂 This time it is a video of us playing a song that was the tittle track from my second album “Read Between the Lines”. Once again, it is a work in progress, nothing fancy, just an iPhone filming us running through the track during our rehearsals last week. But it does capture little bit of that sound scape we have been working on.

For those of you following my songs and blogs for a while now, you might remember this was an important song for me talking about the experience of growing up with dyslexia. For those of you who have not heard this song before, you can read all about it HERE.

Brian and Barra have been working hard with me on the songs and I cannot thank them enough. Soon enough we are hoping to put the hard work in to good use and go out in the world to play some live shows. But more on that as things develop 😉

And as always, I have no budgets, or record labels promoting these videos, except you guys 🙂 So do me a favour and hit those shares below, post this video on your Facebook, Twitter or any other social media you prefer to use, or if you have a blog post it and send me the link and I will share it with the rest of our wonderful community 🙂 You guys rock!

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE